How Hot Yoga Changed my Sex Life

IEG, January 25, 2013

By Christy Casusol

If you have never been to a hot yoga class, you need to get your cute little vegan booty in there already! You’re in a 105-degree room, sweating an incredible amount, wearing nearly nothing, with a dozen or so sweaty strangers who are also wearing next to nothing. Let’s see…we have hardly any clothes on, we’re sweating more than we ever have, and we’re holding onto our feet while planting our faces into the floor—yeah, it’s an overall sexual experience.

Bedroom yoga

When I leave a hot yoga class I want exactly 3 things:

Sex

Food

Shower

Not necessarily in that order. Okay maybe exactly in that order, don’t judge. Since I have started doing hot yoga, I have noticed a major boost in my sex drive. Plus it has increased my flexibility (my boyfriend can testify to this), and made me more comfortable with my body.

Of course any type of yoga can have a wonderful influence on your relationship with your body and your sexual experience, but for me, the entire hot yoga process is a very sexual one. There are certain poses that are practiced in most hot yoga classes that are directly related to increased libido. The modified camel pose (a really intense backbend) is potentially the most difficult pose in many hot yoga sequences. This pose causes your heart rate to speed up and sends blood pumping to many parts of your body, but mostly your pelvic floor. See where I’m going with this now?! When I come out of that pose and lay in savasana I can’t help but smile a little each time. It makes me feel crazy, aroused, anxious, and awesome. It’s like a f*cking…yogasm. Yes, yogasm.

I’ve always been a little naturally flexible, and I practiced other types of yoga for years before I started hot yoga, but I can bend in ways now that I never thought possible. The 105-degree room not only helps heal injuries if you have any, it loosens your muscles up and allows you to bend and stretch farther. Think of your body as rubber, it bends and flexes more easily when it’s warmed up. I’ve always been able to touch my toes, but grabbing underneath my heels with my legs straight and laying my entire torso on my thighs? Yeah, I’ve had sex like that—and it’s glorious. You should try it. Google uttanasana.

Also, let’s talk about getting high—from yoga, not drugs. I swear I was high for like five hours after my first hot yoga class. I still get that feeling. Maybe not for five hours, but I’m always significantly happier when I leave yoga than I was when I got there. As with any exercise, endorphins are released. Endorphins make you happy, happy people have happy sex.

The final and most important thing about hot yoga for me is that it has made me more comfortable and at peace with my body. There’s always a mirror in the hot yoga studios so you can watch yourself get into the poses and work on your alignment. I thought this was going to be an issue for me. I’m the queen of self-hate and I didn’t want to have to stare at my thighs, while feeling miserable and sweating profusely. And of course there’s an incredibly perfect gorgeous little yoga instructor telling me what to do, and as much as I want to hate her for getting into these postures perfectly, I don’t. I never feel judgment in a hot yoga room–not even from myself, which is a big deal. Also, after becoming comfortable with an entire room full of strangers seeing me donning only a sports bra and booty shorts, it’s nothing for my boyfriend to see me entirely nude. (Keep in mind that you can wear more than that to a hot yoga class, but you’ll wish you hadn’t.)

When I’m practicing hot yoga, I’m not only at peace with my body, I’m kind of amazed by it. It can do things I never thought imaginable. Hot yoga classes are extremely demanding and difficult, I’m always relieved impressed when I can get through an entire class conscious. I love challenging my body and I love that it never lets me down, which has brought me to appreciate and respect it even if I don’t get into the poses correctly, and even if there are dimples on my ass.

After sex savasana

Of course, if you’re more comfortable with your body, you’re more relaxed about someone else seeing your body—ergo, better sex.

Yes, there are many other benefits to practicing hot yoga (weight loss, muscle strengthening, relaxation, cleansing, detoxifying), but if you don’t do it for anything else, do it for sex!